Cable

IN HER Critic's Notebook ["Gotcha, 24/7," Aug. 17], Mary McNamara spotlights cable news' clear need to find "sensation" to draw in viewers. This tactic has left me astonished at the content and dismayed at the low level [to which] the fourth estate has fallen. Here's an example I still can't wrap my mind around. Recently, I was stopped short, unable to believe what I was viewing on what had been the crown of cable news. Before me on my TV screen, CNN had its panel of rational commentators seated as usual behind a table; the topic of their "rational discourse" was behind them as backdrop: multiple pictures of Obama, each framed with the inscription in a kind of floral font saying, "Is Obama the Antichrist?"

For most English-language TV broadcasters, Cinco de Mayo means that yearly obligation to recognize their Latino viewers with a festive news feature or public service announcements. Not HBO and Cinemax. Of course, there'll be a special program--a "Cinemax Sessions" benefit concert featuring consummate salsero and crossover screen star Ruben Blades. But that's just icing from two of the nation's biggest cable TV programmers. The day that celebrates Mexico's historic defeat of French forces at the Battle of Puebla also launches the biggest phase of a combined HBO and Cinemax push to offer Spanish-language simulcasting to cable operators nationwide.

Remember the one about the guy who tried to sell the Brooklyn Bridge? This time, the guy is for real. The guy is Lou Pabon--construction worker, bouncer, entrepreneur. Tarnished cable that once stretched like so many gossamer strands of the Brooklyn Bridge now lies in a heap about a mile away from the bridge. It is Pabon's plan to untwirl this giant mound of steel spaghetti and cut it into 3-inch paperweights ($30-$40) and larger brass-, silver- and gold-plated wall plaques ($150 and up)

The first fiber-optic cable across the Pacific Ocean went into service today, tying the United States and Japan together more tightly than ever before. The cable, no bigger than a garden hose, stretches 8,271 miles from California, through Hawaii, splitting in the western Pacific into legs that travel to Guam and Japan. Pacific Link vastly increases the capacity for communication across the Pacific, which is sometimes called the ocean of America's future. Instead of driving a golden spike, the builders of the $700-million cable marked its completion with a video teleconference between Japan and the board room of the New York Stock Exchange.

Authorities closed both directions of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge after a cable snapped on the upper deck of the span Tuesday. California Highway Patrol Officer Peter Van Eckhardt said the bridge would be closed for at least 24 hours so crews can try to repair the cable, which snapped during the evening commute. Van Eckhardt said the closure comes after a cable and a large piece of metal fell onto a westbound portion of the roadway about 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. Before the closure, traffic was already backed up into Oakland.

On tonight's series finale of USA's "Monk," the title detective played by Tony Shalhoub finally learns the truth about his wife's murder. After trying to overcome his obsessive-compulsive disorder and endless phobias through eight seasons and 125 episodes -- factoids Adrian Monk himself would likely cherish -- the final chapter means a resolution, if not a triumph, for the comically tormented hero. As a show, however, "Monk" has already beaten the odds to become one of the most significant series in TV history.

ThiNGs weren't supposed to work this way. Last week's Democratic convention in Denver came off as a tightly scripted affair; all the drama resided in how the thing was covered on TV. It was the ultimate meta-event! Take, for example, the Matthews Meltdown. Discussing Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's speech on Tuesday, MSNBC host Chris Matthews lost it after colleague Keith Olbermann seemed to mock him with a hand gesture that suggested Matthews was talking too much. Hair askew, looking as if he had spent the night on a bench in a bus station, Matthews shed TV's normal protocol and retorted: "I can do the same to you!"